Evil and Wicked

Kitty was still shaken when the Christmas Eve party ended. With Matt, Chester, and Magnus helping Bill and the girls, the saloon was soon cleaned up, leaving the Christmas decorations to be enjoyed for a few more days. Now it was down to Kitty and Matt standing at the bar as they made their goodbyes. Tonight, more than ever, Kitty longed to ask Matt to her room, or for him to pull her into his arms and begin kissing her, as he had done the time he took her fishing, but it appeared that it wasn't to be so. Still, even if the night wasn't to end in romance, Kitty hoped to have Matt's company for as long as possible.

Perhaps Matt felt the same way. His eyes met hers and he put his hand on her shoulder gently. "Looks like you could use another drink." He reached over the bar and grabbed two glasses and a bottle of the best whiskey. "I'm buying." He slipped his hand down to the small of her back and they walked over to what had become their table in the last year.

Kitty sipped delicately at the shot of whiskey and felt her nerves steady, although she still couldn't stop her mind from replaying those moments, standing alone in front of Lucifer Jones and his shotgun, when it seemed as though Magnus had turned against her as well. And Matt wasn't there…. Of course, Kitty wasn't foolish enough to believe Matt could be everywhere at once, but he was supposed to have been there. Her heart squeezed painfully for an instant when she imagined what might have happened if Matt had been there. She shut her eyes at the picture of Matt caught in the cross-fire as he tried to save her from Lucifer. Or, what if he'd come in just a few seconds earlier, misunderstood Magnus' play-acting and shot him?

"Kitty," Matt said quietly, placing a comforting hand over hers. "It's all over. None of those things you're thinking happened."

"Oh, I know, Matt," she sighed. "I'll be all right." She wondered if he did indeed know what she'd been thinking. "Matt-" She decided to change the subject to something that had been nudging at her brain since the day before. Matt looked at her intently with raised brows. "Yesterday Lucifer said something about me being evil because I was pretty."

"That's just talk, Kitty. Don't take that personally."

"I don't-even though he's not the first person I've run across who believes that. But then he said his daughter-that his daughter was like me, and now she's dead. I can't help wondering what happened to her. Do you know anything about that, Matt?"

Matt nodded slowly. "It was about five years ago, before I came to Dodge, but Doc told me about it the first time I had a run-in with Lucifer. Seems his daughter had left home as soon as she turned eighteen-"

"Who could blame her?" Kitty muttered.

"-and got a job here at the Long Branch. Doc never said anything about how pretty she was, but I guess she must have been because it wasn't too long before she got engaged to one of Jake Worth's cowboys. But then he got killed in a gunfight before they could get married, and it wasn't long until people started figuring out the reason they got engaged was because she was, well, you know…."

Kitty nodded.

"So, she tried to go back home, but when she told her father the whole story, he turned her away. She ended up working until she got too, uh...looked too-"'

"Go on, Matt, I know what you mean."

"Anyway, Bill felt sorry for her and offered to let her stay on even though there wasn't really room for her anywhere and he couldn't afford to pay her. They fixed up a little spot for her in the back room and it was working fine until one night a drunk got back there and found her."

"Ohhh." A cold knot formed in the pit of Kitty's stomach, and she swallowed the rest of the whiskey in one gulp.

"Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this?"

Kitty nodded. She couldn't not hear the rest of it.

"Well, when she told him she wasn't working it just made him mad and he-well, Doc said he treated her about as rough as anything he'd ever seen. And even though it wasn't her time it brought the baby on. She died in childbirth, and the baby, too." Matt finished the story and poured them both another drink.

Kitty's eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. "The poor kid," she said bitterly, and picked up her glass. She turned her hand, still in Matt's, and laced her fingers with his.

Lucifer Jones sat on the cot in the cell he'd been locked in and cursed the wicked, evil town of Dodge City and everyone in it. Most hated of all were the Long Branch and all the sinful women abiding there. The Long Branch had taken his daughter from him, but that red-haired temptress, who had tricked even the Marshal into her way of thinking, was still alive. Lucifer clawed his hands through his already disheveled white hair and screamed in wordless rage, powerless to put a stop to the wickedness around him. A gust of wind came through the bars of the cell window, bringing a cloud of snowflakes with it, but he paid no heed to them, or to the blanket covering the cot. "This God-forsaken town and everyone in it will burn in everlasting hellfire," he muttered. The thought of hellfire kept him warm.

Footsteps outside the cell brought him out of his reverie. A young girl stood there looking at him, dressed in a brown calico dress, her blonde hair in a long braid down her back. She pushed the blue gingham sunbonnet back from her face and Lucifer slowly rose from his cot and approached her.

"Annie?" he croaked, his face twisted in disbelief. "I-I thought they killed you." His breath came in short gasps.

"Forgive them," she said.

"For-forgive them? Those creatures of sin?"

"Forgive them, Papa. Like I forgive you."

Lucifer dropped to his knees, struggling for breath. She, forgive him? For what? But he knew. His pious, judgmental ways had driven her away, driven her out into the wicked town he'd preached against. Dodge City had killed her, but it was his fault she was dead. "An abomination unto the Lord," he spat out. He could forgive his Annie for her transgressions, but not the others.

"Papa," she said softly. Lucifer looked into her innocent face, so like she was before she ran away, but her eyes were ageless. He missed her more than he had ever realized. He clutched his hands to his chest and released what little air he had gotten into his lungs in a slow, painful exhale. It was time to leave this miserable world to its own destruction.

End